Slide Readings
A late 19th Century Slide Reading
No magic lantern show consisted of slides alone: there were always elements like music, audience participation or the spoken word. Especially in the later nineteenth century, many slide producers published ‘readings’ giving a recitation, story or lecture to accompany the slide images
The Society’s Readings Library project, launched in 1995, collects copies of surviving readings and sheet music. The Library now comprises over 2,620 items, believed to be the largest collection in the world of these rare texts.
Copies of all items in the Readings Library are available to Society members at reasonable rates. For more information about ordering copies see our Slide Reading Order Page.
If you have any readings or songs not already in the Library and can let us have copies, we would be very glad to hear from you – please Contact us!
Society member Keith Utteridge is also actively researching the songs and music produced specifically to accompany slide sets. Keith is responsible for the maintenance of the Songs Library which is included within the Readings Library.
Reading and song titles are listed alphabetically (ignoring ‘the’, ‘a’ and equivalents in other languages). Many individual titles were published in compilations or collections, and this is noted (‘from...’) where appropriate. To browse the list of readings, click the appropriate initial letter:
To browse the list of readings, click on the appropriate initial letter below:
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